Resurrection
Basic Premise Resurrection is a story about CoNtOuR's rebuilding at the hands of the Renegades, 1500 years after his self-destruction during the fall of the Empire, which he was ordered to do to prevent him from falling into enemy hands. The Renegades find pieces of CoNtOuR's arms and legs, as well as all of his body and head, which survived the explosion of his ship because of the incredible strength of the alloys from which they were constructed. Prologue Time: July 4, 3506 Location: outer regions of the Alpha Imperatoris system (Tau Ceti) CoNtOuR checked the Dark Blizzard's sensor displays for the last time, making sure that no ships were within 2 AU of his current location. He gazed briefly out of the canopy of the heavy fighter in the direction of the system's star, saluted in the Imperial style, then initiated the self-destruct sequence. Moments later, the ship was blown to pieces; CoNtOuR lost consciousness from the tremendous shock of the explosion and his microreactor went off-line, completely erasing his power signature. Chapter 1 Time: July 4, 5006 Location: outer regions of the Mystic system (Tau Ceti) The Renegade scoutship Drifter, looking like an armored insect with its sensor and comm antennae sticking out from the round body of its armored hull, drifted slowly through the blackness of space. On board, the crewmen at the sensor station and helm station, Alphonsus Suarez and Ivan Notokov, paid careful attention to their stations; Suarez called out the new drift vectors of their target object and Notokov quickly maneuvered the scoutship back on course. On the helm HUD the object appeared as a blip on the scanner, but at the sensor station Suarez could see the object in detail, and specialized sensor arrays fed drift vector data back to the ship so that the crew could follow the object and eventually retrieve it. A few hours before the main sensor ship of the Renegade nomad starfleet to which the Drifter belonged had picked up a sensor signature of an extremely rare alloy that had been used hundreds of years before by the Galactic Empire. This piece of alloy would have been highly valuable no matter its size, but it appeared to be at least four feet long. Objects of this size and value were always required to be retrieved as part of Renegade protocol; they made their living by salvaging, so an opportunity like this could not be passed up. The commander of the loosely grouped fleet of Renegade ships had ordered the Drifter, a fast, lightly armed ship equipped with several object-retrieval-capable drones (ORC drones) to investigate the sensor signature. Drifter's captain, Sam Torres, had eagerly accepted the order; it gave their crew something interesting to do while the larger ships in the fleet finished repairs back at their orbital location. "What is the object?" asked Torres. "It looks like a robotic torso, head and arms," said Suarez. "of a very old design, but made using fairly advanced materials." "Should I deploy the extraction probe, Torres?" asked Notokov. "Yes," said Torres. "Suarez, make sure there are no AIS ships in the area; you know how angry those ignorant people get when we salvage objects, because they think they have an automatic right to any salvage even when we find it first." “Area scanned,” said Alf after a few seconds. “We’re in the clear, boss.” “Alright, Ivan, go ahead and launch,” said Sam. “Probe one launched,” said Ivan, turning from his console once the probe was clear. “Now we wait.” “Standby on stealth module, Alf,” said Sam. “Ivan, you and Alf can take care of things up here for now. I’m going back to the probe bay so Holly and I can take a look at this thing once the probe gets back.” Ivan kept the ship on a straight course towards the object so that the ORC drone had to burn as little fuel as possible during its retrieval run. Meanwhile, Sam went through the short access corridor leading to the ship’s dual-purpose probe and cargo bay. On the way, he stopped at the ladder leading up to the ship’s dorsal turret and called Holly Shandal, their gunner and materials analyst, down. “Hey, did you find it?” said Holly, climbing down the steep ladder. “Yes, I’m just going back to the bay to wait for the drone to come back,” said Sam. “Alright, I’ll have to perform the initial analysis on it anyway,” said Holly. “The turret is on autocontrol.” “Good,” said Sam, leading the way to the bay, which was situated in the ventral, or bottom section, of the ship, at the back. They waited in the airlock area just inside the probe bay; after a few minutes, the bay doors opened, and the ORC drone, holding its payload in its claws, was itself grabbed by the automatic clasps coming down from the roof area of the bay and holding the small spacecraft steady. Once the outer bay doors had closed they entered the bay; Sam went to a small control panel to lower the clasps holding the ORC drone, and once it was close enough to the ground Holly walked over to it and opened the drone’s claws using the control panel on the side, allowing the robot in the claws to rest on the ground. She motioned to Sam to raise the drone back to its position on the ceiling of the bay and knelt down to get a closer look at the machine. The android was painted a light brown color, and had a fairly humanoid face. It was constructed very well, with incredible work on the joints; the android would have been capable of blinding movement speed if activated. Its armor was dented and impacted, and there were fragments of other metal alloys stuck into its torso. Based on the damage to its body, Holly guessed it had been damaged in a very powerful explosion. The android’s microreactor compartment, while visually undamaged, was not online; the small ring light around the edge of the access port was not lit. It was built of the extremely lightweight alloy imperanium, a specialized alloy used by the Galactic Empire in the construction of combat androids; the formula for imperanium, along with many other technologies used by the Empire, was lost when it fell. After inspection of the rest of the android’s body, Holly determined that it was an AXK-5 combat android, with some structural modifications, such as a pod on the back that presumably could be used to drop mini-mines or mini-drones. Brushing her short blond hair back, she walked over to Sam, who was standing at the control panel. “Well, it seems to be the upper part of an AXK-5 android, with some extra features,” she said. “Definitely something Commander Nagara would be interested in,” said Sam. “We’ll return to the flagship at once.” Both of them walked back to their stations, after activating the bay’s interior seals again. The ''Drifter ''swung around back towards the Renegade fleet and engaged its ISFTL drive; there was a brief flash of light, then it disappeared from the area. Category:Stories